


The Problem with Papers

by willowcrowned



Series: Lose All Your Senses [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Dwarf in the Flask, M/M, Overuse Of Parentheses, Phone Conversations, Roy literally doesn't shut up, gossip-column induced anxiety, it is... not that, or something, this was supposed to be 3k of Havoc getting beat up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26360668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowcrowned/pseuds/willowcrowned
Summary: ‘ROY MUSTANG: FINALLY COMING OUT?’Oh for fuck’s sake. Ed knows that one. It starts with ‘Has Amestris’s beloved playboy finally given up his string of beards, or is this new beau the first in a line of experiments?’ Which would be fine if it didn’t also have a picture of him with Roy’s arm around him where Ed is smiling at him, totally love struck. It also refers to him as a ‘simple country boy’ who might be ‘leading Roy out of his gallivanting ways and showing him the true value of a pure heart. Which is just... fuck.’
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang, Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang
Series: Lose All Your Senses [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880170
Comments: 29
Kudos: 431





	The Problem with Papers

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I said this would take a while because I wanted to work on other projects? Hah. Yeah. So, instead of that, life happened. This still got written though, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Possible trigger warning for alcoholism. It's Strongly implied that Roy has had problems with it, but it doesn't really get into it.

“Edward Elric,” Teacher says as she opens the door. “What is this?” She brandishes a gossip mag, one of the ones who, for lack of a better target, had had to siphon onto Amestris’ political elite, instead of the film stars they have in Aruego. The page she’s holding is half covered with suspicions of some general or other having an illicit affair, but the part Ed’s eyes are drawn to is the column on the right. 

‘ROY MUSTANG: FINALLY COMING OUT?’ 

Oh for fuck’s sake. Ed knows that one. It starts with ‘Has Amestris’s beloved playboy finally given up his string of beards, or is this new beau the first in a line of experiments?’ Which would be fine if it didn’t also have a picture of him with Roy’s arm around him where Ed is smiling at him, totally love struck. It also refers to him as a ‘simple country boy’ who might be ‘leading Roy out of his gallivanting ways and showing him the true value of a pure heart.’ Which is just.... fuck. (Al has six copies that Ed knows of, all hung up around their apartment. Ed only bothered trying to take them down once, at which point Al found new copies and hung them back up again.) 

“Uhhhhhh,” Ed says, because he’s smart like that. 

Teacher drops the paper. 

“If I die,” he mutters to Al, “tell Roy I’m haunting his ass for doing this to me.” Then he drops his suitcase and runs. 

Unfortunately for him, it’s completely useless. The second he turns, she claps her hands and makes three walls around him, boxing him in. 

“Hey!” He yells. “It’s not fair for you to ambush me this way! I don’t have any arrays ready!” 

“Then you’ve forgotten everything I’ve taught you,” Teacher says, and lunges. 

He doesn’t stand a chance. Aside from him not having any circles on-hand, Teacher is still a better hand-to-hand fighter than he is. And she doesn’t have any problems cheating. 

It’s a hard fight— it always is, but she’s being especially vicious now. At least, he concedes with resigned horror as she blocks another of his punches, she isn’t trying to actually kill him. The tip of the spear she’s made is blunted, which means that he’ll end up with some nasty bruises, but no bleeding. Hopefully. 

He blocks another punch, which turns out to be a mistake, because she kicks out his feet from under him. As he lands on his ass, she frowns disapprovingly, only relenting when he gets back up to try again. 

He lasts about another fifteen seconds before he goes down again, and then only ten after that. He can already feel where the bruises are going to form on his torso— her spear may be hollow and blunted, but it still hits hard— and the adrenaline spike is doing very little to help him avoid her blows, even if it is dulling the pain. 

Finally, she knocks the wind out of him and pins him against one of the walls, spear at his throat. As quickly as he can, he draws a circle in the dirt and activates it, creating a fist of dirt that she has to jump backwards to avoid. 

“Hmm,” Teacher says, looking at him with approval, “you’re not as rusty as I thought.” 

Ed groans. “Are we done?” 

“For now,” Teacher allows, which means that she’ll give him a day or so before she kicks his ass again. 

Al and Winry are watching from the porch, bags discarded as they lean on the railing, and even his mother is looking in on the fight through the doorway. 

“I’ve made quiche,” his mom says with a slightly amused smile, “come in and have some and we’ll get you some ice for those.” 

Ed doesn’t even bother asking why his mom didn’t try to save him. The day she’d met Teacher, when Ed and Al had dragged her back to their house to get permission for her to teach them alchemy, she’d eyed her with some suspicion, invited her inside for tea, and told Ed and Al to go hang out at Winry’s. Almost two hours later, both she and Teacher had shown up at the Rockbell house and told Ed and Al that they could go with her. 

‘But,’ their mom had said, ‘you have to do everything she says. I won’t be coming to rescue you.’ 

Ed still doesn’t know what it was that Teacher had said to her that had convinced her to let Teacher drop two kids off on an island for a month, but he sure wishes he did. 

“Good morning,” Roy greets, stepping inside the doorway of the empty building and slipping his coat off before he stashes it behind the bar. 

“Hey Roy,” Vanessa replies, yawning. Her hair is tied back in a messy low ponytail, still unbrushed, and she’s wearing her glasses. In the morning light, her eyes look large and watery and her skin looks a shade too pale to be healthy. 

“You should get more sleep,” Roy says, grinning as she grumbles at him about rudeness and assumptions and something like ‘honestly, Roy, after all the favors I’ve done you?’ 

“Oh, go bother someone else. It’s too early for this,” she says, shooing him away with her hand. 

“It’s eleven in the morning,” Roy points out, choosing to ignore the fact that she probably woke up less than half an hour ago, and she’s one of the early risers. 

She frowns at him. “That’s what happens when you do honest work.” The ‘unlike you,’ goes without saying. 

Roy snorts. “I’ll make you coffee.” 

“Fine,” she agrees, trailing after him to the back room behind the bar (as opposed to the “back room” at the end of the hallway, which at this point is only a back room in name), where they keep the coffee pot and the med kits and a couch. “Why are you here this early anyways? No one is up.” 

Roy starts the coffee pot and grimaces. “Gossip columns.” 

In her lack-of-sleep induced stupor, it takes her a moment to put things together. “You didn’t want to get in trouble.” 

“I’m probably already in enough trouble just for not telling the Madam about him in the first place, never mind that she already knew,” he says, long suffering. “I just didn’t want to get mobbed. Kathleen is already this close to killing me for cancelling on her last week. She’s going to flay me alive when she finds out that I’m not taking her anywhere for the foreseeable future.” 

When he turns to Vanessa, she has a satisfied look in her eyes. Of course she does. “That’s what you get for keeping secrets.” 

“It’s not a secret if everyone knows about him,” Roy complains, “regardless of whether I told anyone or not.” 

“Uh-huh,” Vanessa replies, looking thoroughly unimpressed. 

The coffee timer goes off. He pours her a cup, and then pours on for himself, for good measure. She takes it gracefully, sips at it to check if it will burn her tongue beyond recognition, and then chugs half the cup like it’s not blisteringly hot. 

“So,” she says, once she’s wiped away the coffee at the corner of her mouth, “tell me about him. What’s he like? How did you miss the fact that he’s a combat alchemist?” 

“Of course you know about that,” Roy mutters. 

“I know everything,” Vanessa says sagely, then laughs. “I’m just saying, isn’t that your area of expertise?” 

“In my defense,” Roy starts, already knowing that he’s doomed. The fact that he had to start a sentence with ‘in my defense’ is basically tantamount to admitting defeat. Judging by Vanessa’s smirk, she’s thinking the same thing, “he’d never had a good reason to show me, and his brother is very good at covering their tracks.” 

“Sure, Roy.” Vanessa huffs. “You’re completely useless. You’d be dead without us.” 

“Probably,” Roy admits. 

Vanessa chugs the other half of her coffee. “So, how did he take to the papers?” 

Roy grimaces. 

What had happened with the papers was this: The night Ed, his brother, and Winry Rockbell had captured Scar, Roy had offered to take them, as well as Riza and Hughes, out to dinner. This had a dual purpose. The first: ensure that Alphonse and Winry bore him no ill-will for their and Ed’s involvement in the whole Scar debacle. The second: let someone get a photo of him and Ed together. 

Two days later, the gossip columns in nearly every paper (barring the ones openly controlled by the military, who had a long-standing policy of not reporting on the private affairs of officers) were plastered in images of him and Ed together. He had actually been rather surprised at the volume; someone in the censor’s office must really have it out for him to let so many of those articles get published. 

Ed had been waiting for him when he got home, sprawled out on the couch and several hundred pages deep in research. (Despite his lack of a key, he had somehow made his way in. Roy should probably not have found that charming in any way whatsoever.) On the coffee table were three separate newspapers, turned to the pages with photos of them together. 

Luckily, because Ed was so absorbed in his research, Roy had had a good five minutes to figure out some contingency plans. It was only once he waved his hand in front of Ed’s face that Ed had realized that there was even another person in the room. 

“Oh, Roy,” Ed had said once he’d gotten the obligatory ‘hey, what’s the big idea with sneaking up on people and interrupting them, don’t you know what manners are’ out of the way, “how do you feel about me seducing you for your money?” 

Roy’s shoulders had relaxed infinitesimally, and not for the first time he was glad that Ed hadn’t ever bothered to learn how to read people. 

“You’re not upset?” Roy asked carefully, projecting as much concern as he could. (Not that it was difficult— he was concerned, just not strictly about Ed’s feelings.) 

“Nah,” Ed said, and Roy had relaxed slightly again. “I mean, it happens, right? And it’s better than the last time I was in the papers.” 

“Oh?” Roy quirked an eyebrow. 

Ed smirked. “Arms smuggling.” 

“You were involved in arms smuggling,” Roy repeated in disbelief. “You do know that I should arrest you for that.” 

“First of all, you can’t prove anything,” Ed had replied. “Second of all, fuck no. My teacher and I used to bust up that sort of thing on the weekends— keep the military from getting involved and all. Good stress relief.” 

“Every single time I learn something new about you, I feel my heart get closer to giving out.” Roy declared, and then they had moved on to the subject of dinner. 

Vanessa looks at him expectantly. 

Roy sighs. “He’s fine with the columns themselves, he was just... taken by surprise.” 

“Well damn,” Vanessa replies, looking at him critically. “You didn’t ask him first?” 

Roy winces. 

Contrary to popular opinion, he doesn’t automatically see every person in his life as a potential resource, waiting to be tapped. (Contrary to even more popular opinion, Roy also doesn’t see them all as potential hookups, but that’s neither here nor there.) Granted, if someone he cares about knows what he’s doing and consents to be used for what Riza and Maes like to refer to as his schemes, he does treat them as such, but the only reason he does so is that they agreed to it. People are, fundamentally, people, and not his own personal resources. There’s a line between manipulating someone into a situation and taking advantage of someone undeserving, and he likes to think he errs on the less-morally-dubious side of that line. 

But Ed hadn’t consented— hadn’t had even the slightest idea of what would happen— and he isn’t some poor intern Roy managed to use to expose some corrupt official or another, he has an actual relationship with Roy, and Roy had taken advantage of that. He had used Ed’s trust for him to put him in a situation where his private life would be exposed, and then used Ed’s trust further to get away scot-free. 

Roy needs public support right now; the budget meetings are in two months, and whatever is decided there is going to be the standard for at least the next five years. If he can get enough public support for his budget (which he’s decently sure is going to get him disemboweled by Olivier Armstrong, given that he’s proposing taking a good deal of money away from “foreign policy” (read: tanks) and putting it towards potential trade agreements), he can convince enough parliamentary representatives to block some of the more... extreme budget proposals put forward, and to get public support, he needs public opinion on his side. His relationship with Ed adds weight to his public stance as a liberal (or what passes for a liberal in Amestris— years of a military dictatorship have not encouraged a broad range of political views. Even a few years ago, merely publicly suggesting that perhaps a functioning parliament might be a good idea was enough to get you put in jail for at least a few nights), which he desperately needs, given that the whole ‘Hero of Ishval’ thing doesn’t exactly endear him to anyone who doesn’t buy into the ‘soldiers protect our freedom’ line, and he’s not wildly popular among the old generation of hardline conservatives either. 

But needing something doesn’t excuse his actions. It’s a basic tenet of morality: the ends rarely— if ever— justify the means. Saying ‘Yes, I know I willfully helped invade your privacy, but in my defense, it’s really helping my public approval rating’ is not a good or fair defense. The fault is on Roy for failing to communicate effectively, and the degree to which Ed will probably be pissed at him is only going to be matched by the degree to which Roy is pissed at himself. 

“No,” Roy says finally, not able to meet her eyes. 

She grimaces. “Smart move coming in early, then. The Madam is going to kill you when she hears.” 

“I know,” Roy sighs. “Are you planning to tell her?” 

Vanessa gives him an amused look. “Well I’m not going to lie to her.” 

That’s a yes. 

Roy huffs. “Do you have anything for me?” 

“Yup!” Vanessa presses a latch under the table that the coffee pot is on, and a compartment springs open. Out of it she draws a file. “That should be enough to help you get started on the new budget.” 

Roy flicks through the file, more out of curiosity than out of any need to check that she’s done her work correctly. Vanessa is a quick study, and she’s been doing this for too long to be anything but incredibly good at it. “Thank you.” 

She huffs, but her slight smile displays her pleasure at the compliment. “Pay me in cash, not in platitudes.” 

Roy already has his wallet open and is pulling out the bills. 

“This is too much.” She frowns. 

“I know,” Roy says, “call it a thank you for waking up early.” 

She snorts, but pockets the money. “You’ll have to deal with the rest of them some time soon.” 

“I don’t doubt it,” Roy agrees, “but I think I’ll put it off as long as I can.” 

“Your funeral,” she says. 

“I know.” Roy closes the file and gives her a kiss on the cheek. “It’s always a pleasure.” 

She very clearly fingers the bills in her pocket. “The pleasure is all mine.” 

“Clearly.” 

They both keep their expressions semi-neutral for a second more before breaking into smiles. 

“Don’t be a stranger,” Vanessa tells him, trailing after him as he exits the room and grabs his coat from behind the bar. 

He rolls his eyes. “You just want to see me get chewed out.” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” She giggles. 

He shakes his head, smiling at her fondly. “Bye, ‘Nessa.” 

“I got beaten up for you,” Ed tells Roy. He’s on the phone in his dad’s study instead of the one in the kitchen in the hopes that it’ll keep people from eavesdropping too much. It probably won’t. “You better appreciate this.” 

“Defending my honor?” Roy asks. “How chivalrous of you.” 

Ed snorts. “What honor? No, my Teacher just nearly cracked my ribs. She saw the article.” 

“The one that calls you a ‘simple country boy’ or the one that calls you an ‘immoral tart?’” 

“The first one,” Ed clarifies, “though I wish she’d seen the one calling me an immoral tart. She might have gone easier on me if she thought I was after you for your money.” 

“And status,” Roy adds, “don’t forget that.” 

“Right,” Ed says, “your incredible status as Central’s sleaziest politician, how could I forget.” 

“Third sleaziest,” Roy argues, “though Hughes keeps claiming that my boyish charm and good looks are keeping me from climbing higher in his official rankings.” 

“He has official rankings?” Ed asks with glee. “This I’ve got to see.” 

“The columns were right,” Roy declares, “you are an immoral tart.” 

“Whatever,” Ed says, “you’re into it.” 

There’s a silence at the other end that means that Roy agrees, but he’s not happy about it. 

Ed grins. “Miss you.” 

“Miss annoying me, you mean,” Roy says, though the bitterness is belied by the fact that he sounds like he’s smiling. 

“And your library,” Ed sighs. That’s actually a lie, but he’s sure as hell not going to admit that. (He’s hit a wall in his research that he’s pretty sure one of his dad’s old alkahestry volumes might have a solution for. Roy has a great collection, but it’s short on anything that isn’t strictly Amestrian.) 

Roy snorts. “I take back what I said earlier. You’re not an immoral tart, you’re an immoral nerd.” 

“I’m sure any intelligent person seems like a nerd to someone who still thinks that the theory of inversional repulsion still holds.” 

“Hey!” Roy says indignantly. “If you use it within the context of an unfixed loop, then it’s a quick solution to the energy drain.” 

“Yeah, but if you’re smart enough not to create an unfixed loop in the first place, then you don’t need it.” 

The door opens, revealing Teacher’s silhouette. 

“Uh, hold that thought,” Ed says to Roy, who’s already in the middle of a rant about an inability to be prepared for everything, Edward, so it’s not my fault if I look for imperfect solutions, Edward, “and plant venus flytraps on my grave if I die.” 

Teacher rolls her eyes. “I’m not here to kill you, Edward.” 

“Oh, good,” Ed replies, “you’re just going to break some of my bones.” 

From the sound of it, Roy is doing a very bad job of smothering a laugh. 

“I’m here to talk to him,” she says. 

“Better you than me,” Ed tells Roy philosophically. He hands the phone over before he can hear Roy’s response. 

“I don’t like you,” she tells Roy. 

Silence, while Roy answers. 

“Hm,” Teacher says. “So?” 

More silence. Ugh. This is almost worse than fighting Teacher himself. Almost, because bruised ribs hurt like a bitch. 

“I don’t trust people sloppy enough to make unfixed loops, especially if they’re working primarily with oxygen.” 

Silence. 

“Well, that’s true enough.” 

Even more silence. 

“Ah,” she says, face relaxing into a grin. Ed shivers. That doesn’t bode well. “Well, I’ll kill you if you fuck up, and whoever is listening is welcome to have that on record.” 

She drops the phone back in Ed’s hand with a wink, leaves the study, and closes the door. Ed really, really, hopes that means she’s decided not to hurt him any more for now. 

“—not tapped, I swear!” Comes Roy’s voice as E raises the phone to his ear. 

Ed snorts. “Really?” 

“Well, probably,” Roy says, “but it’s always possible someone’s tapped it between two days ago when Fuery checked and now. You willingly said you miss me thinking someone else was listening in?” 

Ed huffs. “What, I’m not allowed to say things on record now?” 

“I’m just surprised you said it at all. I was expecting you to deny any allegations and then jump my bones the second you saw me.” 

“I would not— whatever. What did you tell her?” 

“Just that she wouldn’t like me even if I didn’t occasionally create unfixed loops. She seemed to agree.” 

“Well,” Ed says philosophically, “at least she only threatened to kill you.” 

“Only?” 

Ed snorts. “Yeah, usually she goes for the maim, torture, and kill.” 

“Great. I feel so honored.” 

“Perks of dating a sweet country boy.” 

“I’m sure the second they meet you they’ll be disabused of that notion.” 

“You’re a bastard.” 

“Someone does make a habit of reminding me of that, yes,” Roy says, and Ed can hear the dumbass smirk in his voice. 

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just stop.” 

“And then what would you do for fun? Talk to me about the weather?” 

“Maybe I’d go back to vigilantism,” Ed suggests. 

“You have to know that that’s not an incentive for me to stop. I’d constantly be terrified about having to deal with the property damage,” he sighs. 

Ed snorts. “You sure this line isn’t tapped? Because you sound a hell of a lot like you’re doing a routine.” 

“I don’t have to be doing a routine to complain about property damage.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

Roy snorts. “I miss you too.” 

“Great, now I’m really convinced that this is secretly a performance.” 

“Would you prefer I don’t say it at all and just jump your bones the second I see you again?” 

Ed frowns. “Rain check. Let me do the math.” 

Roy laughs, and Ed smiles. It’s a nice sound, nicer for the fact that he hasn’t actually heard it in a while between the whole thing with Scar, then the whole thing with the gossip columns, and now Ed’s trip back home. “I do miss you.” 

“Yeah, I know, I’m a fucking delight.” 

“Well, sometimes you’re a pain in the ass—” 

“Pain in your ass,” Ed corrects. 

Roy snorts. “That too. But yes, occasionally, you are a fucking delight.” He sighs. “By the way, how worried should I be about your teacher actually trying to kill me?” 

“Uh.” Ed has to think about it for a moment. “Fifty-fifty? So long as you don’t do anything super awful to me, she probably won’t do it. She hates being on the run from the law.” 

“How did I get involved with a family of psychopaths?” Roy asks, more to himself than to Ed. 

Ed snorts. “You were friends with Hughes before you met me.” 

“That,” Roy says, “is an excellent point.” 

Ed hears a noise in the hallway that either means that someone who’s been listening the whole time has just given themself away, or that someone just failed to sneak up to listen. “I think I gotta go,” Ed says. “I’ll call you tomorrow?” 

Roy makes a noise of affirmation. “I’ll probably be back after seven.” 

“Great. Talk to you then.” Then, because Ed is terrible at ending calls, he spits out a “Bye then” and slams the receiver back in its hook. 

Fuck, maybe it’d be easier if he were some sort of immoral tart. Then he’d be able to end a phone call without freaking out. Of course, he considers, then he’d probably have to do things like ruin Roy’s career, and he’s not really interested enough in the minutia of politics to figure out how to do that. 

Roy sighs, staring at his desk with no small amount of consternation. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, but it’s already getting dark. Outside is cold, he knows; even if he hadn’t actually experienced it that morning, the aching tendons in his hand would be a dead giveaway. 

The outer office is unusually quiet, courtesy of Havoc’s absence. (That doesn’t necessarily mean that there are less... shenanigans, just that people are being quieter about them. Havoc, despite his many virtues, has not once in his life been subtle.) Roy had sent him off to try to recruit Izumi Curtis that morning— he should be in Resembool by now. 

Roy is anticipating a delighted call from Ed tonight, filled with details of Mrs. Curtis’ harsh and swift retribution. The week before, when he’d run the idea past him, he had seemed just on the amused side of horrified, which Roy is taking as tacit approbation. Besides, even if Ed doesn’t appreciate the show, Roy still fully intends to extract details; he has a vendetta, and he wants it fulfilled. 

Roy doesn’t often make a habit of being petty— at least not to his team (Maes is a different matter; he has it coming)— but when he does, he tries to go for the poetic justice sort of revenge. Make Roy late to a date, get your girlfriend stolen; place a rude bet on him, lose the next pot; use his emergency supply of embroidery thread to continuously fail to demonstrate how cat’s cradle works to a pretty girl and get the whole skein tangled, spend your weekend untangling every requisition request he can get his hands on. 

Roy likes to think he’s a fair man; he never deals out undue vengeance and he makes sure that any sort of petty revenge either has no unfortunate consequences for the person, or that those consequences are mitigated either by a new date, a slight raise, or a few days off. It helps that he never has to punish them for anything serious. He doesn’t really hold with punishment, anyways; either you learn from your mistake or you don’t, and getting punished for it by a superior doesn’t do anything except breed resentment. His inner circle are good people— capable, confident, and paranoid to a fault— so the only things he ever has to get revenge for are minor inconveniences. 

Well, minor inconveniences, and Havoc’s newfound reticence. Normally, the sort of thing Havoc had done— withholding pertinent information— would be met with a slow phasing out of his more important roles. Roy would keep him around, probably, but he wouldn’t rely on him— not the way he does now. 

As it is, all this has revealed is that Havoc has below-average decision-making skills, which isn’t so much a reveal as the newest instance in a long pattern. Obviously the Elrics are scary— nearly all of them seem to have been involved in several deeply illegal things at one point or another and have managed to obscure the evidence so well that even after months of searching, Hughes has turned up with no more than a few eyewitness reports and a few errant articles, all of which had later been retracted— but Ed wouldn’t have actually hurt Havoc if he had just told Roy what he could do. 

(Of course, there is the matter of Alphonse, who Hughes had informed Roy was ‘delightfully cutthroat’ and ‘deeply disapproving.’ Alphonse may have gone after Havoc even if Ed had failed to— Hughes had said that he was incredibly protective— but Roy has the distinct feeling that he probably would have deferred to his brother’s preference when it came to revenge. Alphonse, from what he’s heard, is ruthlessly pragmatic, and ‘ruthlessly pragmatic’ means that he won’t do anything potentially dangerous without a concrete reason. Since ‘You told my brother’s lover (who I do not approve of, and who I still hope my brother will stop liking so he can go date someone actually good enough for him) something that my brother didn’t want you to tell him, thereby making my brother actually communicate for once’ isn’t an incredibly solid reason, he’s of the opinion that Havoc probably would have been fine.) 

Hence Izumi Curtis. 

He’d be lying if he said he hoped Havoc didn’t get at least a little injured— not seriously injured, just a bruise or fifteen. But he figures the fact that he’s basically giving Havoc paid leave to visit his family will make up for it. And Ed will get to watch Havoc get beat up, which he will probably really enjoy. So: win-win-win. 

Roy glances at the clock. It’s twenty to five, he’s ahead on his work for once (which is one of the benefits of being one of the few people of his rank without a family. He’s reasonably sure that he and Olivier are the only people who work through most of the holidays), and it’ll be dark by the time he gets home if he doesn’t leave now. 

Roy grabs his coat and gloves— winter, not flame— and leaves his inner office. 

“Leaving so soon, sir?” Riza asks in what will sound like a dangerous tone to everyone else. Fortunately for Roy, he’s been reading her since she was fourteen, and the lack of stiffness in her jaw is giving her away. 

“It’s the holidays, isn’t it?” Roy asks. “I think we all deserve a break.” 

The rest of them look on, amused by their old song and dance. They go through this routine at least three times a week just to ensure that everyone who’s bugged the office is thoroughly convinced of his ineptitude and lack of work ethic. In actuality, Roy usually sneaks copies of files home to work on, and Riza is the one who has to convince him to take breaks. (Unsurprisingly, she’s had to threaten him into relaxing far less than usual since Ed he’s started seeing Ed. Ed is... an excellent distraction, as people who burst into your home yelling about advanced alchemical theory tend to be. (He is also an excellent distraction for other reasons, but it’s a sad commentary on the state of Roy’s life that nowadays he is far more likely to be distracted by the promise of alchemy than the promise of sex, no matter how good the sex is.)) 

She narrows her eyes, but her hand lies open and unclenched where it rests on her desk, which is a clear indication that she’s enjoying this as much as he is. “All, sir?” 

He gestures broadly. “They’ve been working hard too, haven’t they?” 

Fuery hides the pictures of his dogs that he’d been showing to Falman as they all try to look very diligent. 

She frowns. 

“Oh, come on,” Roy pleads, a touch dramatic, even for him, “it’s the holidays. They’re already here, aren’t they? Let them see their families.” (The fact that only Falman really has a family is irrelevant. Fuery has dogs and Breda has a girlfriend, and those count for his purposes.) 

“Very well,” she caves, pretending as if she hadn’t been intending to agree from the beginning. “But I’ll expect them— and you— the next two days as well.” 

“Of course,” Roy promises, already sweeping out the door in a flurry of movement. He can feel her amused gaze from behind him as he bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. 

Jean shows up in the evening, while the entire family is lazing around the living room, eating crackers in relative silence. Ed is working on decoding his dad’s journals (shut up old man I can do it myself, I don’t need help cracking your code; it’s probably just a substitution cipher anyways), Al is helping Winry mess with densities of weird chrome alloys in the hopes of creating something that can withstand relatively cool temperatures, his dad is napping with his head in his mom’s lap, his mom is making notes on a stack of papers that Ed can only assume is her own novel, Granny and Teacher are day drinking (as usual), and Sig keeps making tea when any of them run out. It’s quiet— oddly quiet, for them, since Ed is basically guaranteed to get into a screaming match with half the room on any given day— but it’s nice, peaceful. Ed has never been religious, but he likes the holidays anyways; it’s the only time his family is all in one place. 

But he’s bored. Teacher always gets quiet when she starts drinking, and Al and Winry are off in their own world. He loves research, but you can only do code-breaking for so long before your brain starts to want a real challenge. Ed has just decided to go outside and run through his forms, cold or not, when there’s a knock at the door. 

“I’ll get it,” he says, vaulting over one of the couches. 

His mom tsks. Shit, he’ll pay for that later. Probably in chores. 

“Hey,” Jean says as soon as Ed opens the door. He looks cold and miserable. 

Ed blinks. “Uh, hey?” 

“I’m here to talk to Mrs. Curtis,” Jean explains. 

Ed’s expression goes blank, then, slowly, he can feel a delighted grin spreading across his face. Well, that’s his boredom solved. This is gonna be fun. “Roy didn’t send you before she left Dublith?” 

Jean groans. “You knew? And you didn’t warn me?” 

Ed winces. “Would it be better if I said I got so distracted by all the articles that I forgot?” 

Jean gives him a betrayed look. 

“Oh well,” Ed says, only a little regretful. “Yo, Teacher!” He yells. “You have a visitor!” Then, quieter, to Jean. “You should probably step outside. My mom hates having to fix the walls alchemically.” 

“Can you make him pay me overtime for this?” Jean pleads. 

Ed considers it. Roy hadn’t sent him off immediately, meaning he was waiting for Teacher to get to Resembool. And he knew that Jean would probably claim to be too sick to be on a train just in time for the holidays. “Nah,” Ed says, clapping Jean on the back. “But I’ll tell him you think he’s a dick, if that makes it any better.” 

Jean pales. “Hawkeye would kill me.” 

Ed laughs, and Teacher shoulders her way past him. “Good luck.” 

“What is it?” Teacher growls. Despite the smell of alcohol coming off her, she looks alarmingly sober. Trust the woman literally missing internal organs to have the tolerance of a freaking tank. 

“Uh,” Jean says, nervously noticing the way she’s suspiciously eyeing his military uniform. “Mrs. Curtis. I’m here to offer you a position as a State—” 

“No,” Teacher says firmly. “Fuck off.” 

Jean’s gaze darts to Ed, clearly trying to figure out if Ed is going to rat him out for not trying hard enough (read: getting beat up). He seems to decide that, yes, Ed is enough of a dick to rat him out, which is so unfair, even if it’s true, and he sighs. 

“You would be offered access to an incredible assortment of resources,” Jean continues, “and I have it on good authority that you could—” 

“I said no,” Teacher repeats, eyes narrowed. Her voice is dangerously low. “And if you keep asking, I will throw you off this property personally.” 

Ed winces. It’s a mile and a half to the edge of the property. That will not stop her. 

Jean gulps. “Please, ma’am—” 

He doesn’t see her coming. 

She lands a kick in his stomach, sending him sprawling. Teacher claps, presses her hands to the ground, and watches as he’s enveloped in a fist poised to throw him several hundred meters. 

“Don’t hurt him!” Ed intercedes before she can actually throw him. “It’s not his fault his boss is a dick.” 

She frowns, turning back to Ed. “You know my policy for recruiters.” 

Ed huffs. “Hey, Jean?” 

There’s a squeak from inside the fist, which Ed takes to mean as a ‘yeah?’ 

“Will you tell anyone that she didn’t send you to the hospital?” 

“No!” Comes a weak voice. 

“There you go,” Ed gestures. 

Teacher raises an eyebrow. “You’re forgetting that everyone will see he wasn’t sent to the hospital. 

“Invite him in,” Ed suggests, “we can claim that my dad healed him.” 

She sighs. “Fine.” Teacher claps again, and when she presses her hands to the ground, the fist drops Jean and returns itself to the earth. 

“So,” Ed says, hopping up onto the counter while he holds the phone to his ear, “it was nice of you to let Jean spend the holiday with his family.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Roy says with a smirk in his voice that means he knows exactly what Ed is talking about. “I merely sent him to recruit an extremely skilled alchemist.” 

“Please tell me you’re a better liar than this when you’re not talking to me.” 

“Of course I am.” Roy almost sounds offended. 

Ed snorts. “Bit rough to make sure he was beaten up by her first, though.” 

“I can’t imagine anyone you know would attack a military officer,” Roy says innocently. 

Ed rolls his eyes, forgetting that Roy can’t see him. “I’ve been too nice to you. Remind me to deck you when I get back.” 

“He lied to me about you,” Roy says, dropping the farce. 

“Hey, Jean!” Ed shouts into the next room. “Did you lie to Roy about me?” 

“No!” Jean yelps, as though he’s considering the possibility of having actually done so and doesn’t like the result. 

“Jean says he didn’t,” Ed says at a normal level. 

“He lied by omission,” Roy counters. “He didn’t tell me pertinent information, so he deserves to get beaten up.” 

“You have never met my teacher,” Ed says darkly. He shivers. “Only a few people deserve to get beaten up by her, and Jean doesn’t, even though it was fun to watch.” 

There’s an indignant ‘hey!’ from the next room that tells him that Jean heard him. 

Roy snorts. “I had to send someone to ask her or it would look like I was shirking my responsibilities. And Jean was available. And deserving.” 

“Like you never shirk your responsibilities,” Ed says, rolling his eyes. 

“Why do I bother to answer your calls?” Roy sounds amused and slightly exasperated. 

“Because I’m a damn delight,” Ed answers. 

There’s a vague sound at the other end of the line that means that Roy agrees, but he’s not willing to admit it on principle. 

Ed grins. “Still nice of you to let him nurse his wounds at home in consolation, though.” 

“Coincidence,” Roy posits. “I would never.” 

“I tell you you’re a dick, you deny it. I tell you that you’re nice, you deny it. Do you ever admit to anything?” 

“Maybe,” Roy says, and Ed can hear the smirk in his voice. “Let me ask my lawyer if I can answer that.” 

“Fucking politicians,” Ed grumbles good-naturedly. 

“Only one, I hope.” 

“You’re impossible,” Ed groans. “And that’s not a compliment.” 

“I’ll try not to take it as one,” Roy says wryly. 

Ed notices that the living room is suspiciously silent, and swears under his breath. 

“Ed?” 

“Jean is dying,” Ed says, entirely unconvincingly. “Oh dear, I need to go help him. It’s too bad I can’t stay and talk to you without anyone else listening in.” 

Roy snorts. “Are they really?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?” 

“No,” Ed says, by which he means ‘If I answer that and they hear, they’re going to kill me.’ 

“No?” There’s a smile in Roy’s voice that means he knows what’s going on. “Your mother or your brother? 

“Both,” Ed answers. 

“Is it because they want to annoy you? Or is it because they don’t trust me?” 

“Yes, and yes.” 

“Hm,” Roy says, “I don’t suppose it’d be any use talking to them?” 

“Nah,” Ed replies, “but maybe soon.” 

“Soon?” 

“Soon,” Ed confirms. “When I get back.” 

“You’ll give me fair warning, won’t you?” 

“Right, because you deserve fair warning after what you did to Jean.” 

“I thought we established that he was deserving.” 

“No,” Ed contradicts, “you established that, and then moved on before I could argue more.” 

Someone in the living room sets down a glass, and it’s telling that it’s still quiet enough for him to hear the clink as it hits the coaster. 

“Okay, I really do have to go.” 

“Of course,” Roy allows, “I wouldn’t want you to have to deal with nosy relatives.” 

“No,” Ed snorts, “you don’t want to deal with them, and you’re scared someone is going to walk in and demand to talk to you.” 

Roy doesn’t respond, which means that he knows it’ll be obvious that he’s laughing if he does. 

“You’re fucking weird,” Ed says, because he’s pretty sure that normal people don’t laugh when they’re accused of being conniving cowards. 

“You’re one to talk,” Roy replies, and oh, yeah, he’s totally trying not to laugh. 

“Uh-huh,” Ed says, because he knows if he responds with anything cleverer than that then they’re going to keep arguing. “Bye.” 

He hangs up. Fuck, he still can’t manage to end a phone call right. There’s got to be some sort of help desk he can call for that. Of course, then he’d still have to make and end a call, which sort of defeats the entire purpose. 

“Roy!” Hughes says, bursting into Roy’s inner office. “Let’s talk.” 

Roy groans. His team is gone— he’d given them the next few days off— and he’s alone with a hyperactive Hughes. He can imagine few worse things. 

“About what?” Roy replies, making sure Hughes knows how long suffering he is by sighing deeply. Hughes is not impressed. 

“Ed.” 

Roy blinks. “I’m getting a distinct sense of déjà vu here. You’re not about to tell me that I should buy him a lace camisole, are you?” 

“Blouse,” Hughes corrects gleefully, “I said you should get him a blouse. The lace camisole is all your own brain.” 

Roy groans. 

“Anyways,” Hughes says, “let’s get a drink. You could use a break.” 

Roy huffs distrustfully. If Hughes wants him out of range of potential bugs, it can’t be good. On the other hand, it’s six in the evening, he’s been here for ten hours, and he’s terribly bored. 

“Fine,” Roy says, getting up and grabbing his coat, “but you’re paying.” 

Hughes sniffs, then mutters something about ‘damn cheap military bastards some of us have a family to provide for and not just a hot young boyfriend you should be paying for me I know how much you make, Roy’ but Roy pretends to ignore it, because the alternative is spending the entire walk to the bar trying to tally up how much money they owe each other, and at this point it’s probably in the hundreds of thousands of cens range. 

Hughes starts showing him photos while they walk, which at least has the advantage of keeping him from not literally shoving them in Roy’s face for fear of tripping him. He’s just made it through the latest week’s— Lucia’s latest foray into archeology (which involved a lot of digging up the backyard), Gracia playing cards, and Elicia scowling angrily at Hughes with rather too much eyeliner on (though she’s improved since he’s last seen her; at least this time it’s at least mostly confined to the eyelids, instead of smeared all over)— when they get to the bar Hughes has chosen. 

It’s not an old haunt, not that they really have those any more, what with Roy getting more and more recognizable and his usual hangouts getting more and more well-known, but they’ve been a few times in the last year, enough to know where the quietest corners are. 

“Right,” Hughes says, clapping Roy on the back and shoving him towards one of the corners, “I’ll get the drinks.” 

Which leaves Roy with just enough time to really get into worrying about whatever it is Hughes wants to talk about. There is, of course, the possibility that this a purely social ‘I’m-going-to-stick-my-nose-in-your-business-because-I'm-Maes-Hughes-and-I-need-a-hobby' talk, but Hughes probably wouldn’t have bothered taking him this far out of the way just for a ‘so how long did you talk to Ed yesterday and why are you sending him Jean Havoc as a gift, you know that he’s a terrible stripper, right?’ 

His worst fears are confirmed when Hughes comes back with beer instead of whiskey; he clearly wants Roy entirely sober for the process, which means Roy is really, really, going to want whiskey. 

“So,” Hughes says, “You’ve been freaked out lately. More than usual, I mean.” 

“Thanks,” Roy mutters, “it’s all the sleep and long walks in the woods.” 

Hughes rolls his eyes. “What’s bothering you?” 

Well, fuck. This isn’t a ‘tell me in great detail about your relationship,’ or its worse cousin, ‘let me tell you about me and Gracia in the hopes that it makes your relationship issues somehow easier to deal with.’ This is the worst possible iteration: ‘I am Maes Hughes, and you can’t lie to me, so either talk or be subjected to my endless bitching about how you won’t.’ 

“Your nosiness,” Roy replies, which isn’t technically a lie. 

“Uh-huh,” Hughes says, “would you rather do this with Hawkeye?” 

Roy blanches. He loves Riza; she’s competent and acerbic and he treasures the nights she comes over and makes alphabetized lists of everyone she’s had detailed fantasies of tossing out a window that week, but whenever he starts spiraling into inescapable anxiety, she just sighs and gives him some cool and very good advice and then rigs the office betting pools against him for the next month. He suspects it’s her version of a spray bottle filled with water, which would be hilarious if it weren’t aimed at him. At least when Hughes drags him out of an anxious spiral, he just sighs and hides all the liquor in Roy’s house. 

“Point taken.” Roy groans. “Ed doesn’t know I set the articles up intentionally.” 

Hughes blinks. “That’s what’s bothering you?” 

“Hey!” Roy protests. “How would you like being told that you were just used to score a few points in what essentially amounts to a popularity contest?” 

“He called it a popularity contest?” Hughes looks highly amused. 

“I’m paraphrasing. There was a lot more swearing.” 

Hughes snorts. “Of course. Anyways, that’s not what I meant.” 

Roy raises an eyebrow at Hughes, channeling his best ‘Sure, Elicia, you just wanted to know what the inside of a cookie jar felt like, you weren’t actually going to take any cookies’ look that he’d learned years ago when he’d had to take care of her for the week because all of Gracia’s friends didn’t have enough security at their houses and all of Hughes’ responsible friends were busy. 

“Really, Roy, what gives you the idea that he doesn’t already know?” 

“Hughes,” Roy says flatly, “you do realize that not everyone automatically assumes that the person they’re dating is going to use them to manipulate the press, right? Gracia has spoiled you.” 

“Well, yes,” Hughes replies, “to both of those, but you’re assuming that Ed still thinks you have some sort of honor.” 

Roy gives him a dirty look. “I could fire you.” 

“No, you couldn’t. We’ve had this discussion before.” Hughes huffs. “I’m just saying. I doubt it would be that bad if you just flat out told him that you had intended for it to happen. Unless...” He eyes Roy suspiciously. “Oh, this is about you not telling him, isn’t it? Not just about what will happen if you do.” 

Roy glares at him balefully. “Stop trying to psychoanalyze me. You’re not my therapist.” 

“You don’t have a therapist,” Hughes points out. “You probably should, though, if that’s what you want to talk about.” 

Great. Roy just loves when Hughes transparently threatens him into talking about his feelings by threatening him with talking about his feelings to a professional instead. 

Roy huffs. Fine. If that’s how Hughes is going to play it. But he’s definitely going to make sure that Hughes mysteriously gets stuck with mounds and mounds of requisition paperwork that shouldn’t have ever made their way to Investigations but somehow did. “He didn’t agree to it. I didn’t ask him for his permission.” 

“Okay.” Hughes shrugs. “Apologize for it, and don’t do it again.” 

“That’s not the point. I still did it. I didn’t think ahead.” 

Hughes pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. When he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically soft. “You don’t need to flagellate yourself for every mistake, Roy. No one got hurt— not seriously, anyways, and I’m pretty sure Ed can take a few articles even if he wasn’t prepared for them.” 

Roy drops his gaze down to the table where his hands are folded. He always wears gloves these days— he has since before the coup, but now it’s less a matter of security and more a matter of vanity. Underneath the fabric are thick, marked, scars, pale and raised. They ache terribly in this sort of weather— when the cold turns from dry to wet and it’s impossible to get warm. Last night, after he’d gotten off the phone with Ed, he’d spent an hour soaking them in hot water. He had still woken at three in the morning by the endless, unceasing, throbbing. 

Hughes follows his gaze. “You can’t stop yourself from making mistakes, you know.” 

He knows. (Sometimes— most nights, if he’s being honest— he has flashes of Hawkeye dying, Hawkeye nearly dead, the burn on her side matching the one on her back, the flesh blistering where he cauterized it.) “I know,” he says roughly. “But there are some things that I should be able to avoid doing by now.” Asking for the barest modicum of consent is one of them. 

Hughes shrugs. “You were scared and unsure of how he’d react, so you didn’t ask. It happens. No harm, no foul.” 

Roy flexes his fingers, feeling where the palms tighten, limiting his reach. When he turned eight, his aunt had signed him up for piano lessons. By the time he was fourteen, he was more than half-decent, and he prided himself on being able to hit nearly an octave and a half with one hand. He hasn’t played in years, but he doubts he could even manage more than seven keys. 

“Roy,” Hughes says, more intensely. “Just tell him. Some mistakes aren’t permanent.” 

But most are, Roy thinks. “Actions cannot be judged purely on the basis of their consequences. Moral evaluation of the human soul must be founded upon intention.” 

Hughes sighs. “You’ve been reading moral philosophy books again. Fantastic.” 

“I mean,” Roy says, “that whether or not Ed was hurt, I still took the chance that he would be. What sort of person does that make me?” 

“The sort of person whose current self-destructive behavior of choice is to seize upon minor mistakes until they seem like an insurmountable obstacle,” Hughes sighs. “Will you take one step back and look at how ridiculous you’re being? You’re just latching onto this as a way of punishing yourself.” 

Roy bites back his instinctive denial. He owes Hughes that much, at least, especially when he’s spending his evening dealing with Roy’s shit. 

“Punishment is an ineffective tactic for growth,” Hughes says, staring at him with the piercing look that always makes Roy feel three sizes too small for his clothes. 

What was it he had said a few days earlier? ‘Either you learn from your mistake or you don’t, and getting punished for it by a superior doesn’t do anything except breed resentment?’ ...Fuck. Trust Hughes to know exactly where to land a hit to exploit his logical fallacies. 

Roy lets out a long sigh and leans back, letting his head drop onto the back of the booth. “I owe you a drink,” he says, by which he means, ‘You’re right, and thank you.’ 

“Yes, you do,” Hughes agrees, which means he heard what Roy wasn’t saying and is willing to put up with his stupid habit of never saying what he means because he’s a fantastic friend. “And you owe Ed a call.” 

“Tomorrow,” Roy promises. “For now, let’s pay and get home.” 

They leave the half-empty beers on the table. 

The phone rings at ten that night. Ed had called earlier but hadn’t gotten an answer, so he’d figured Roy was busy with some stupid thing or another and proceeded to collapse on the couch until his mom made him help her copyedit. (They’d figured out that he was absolutely useless about three sentences in, when he’d tried to correct her spelling of accoutrements only to learn that he had no idea what accoutrements was supposed to mean. (‘What do you mean it’s not just a fancy word for shoes?’ ‘I mean that it doesn’t refer to shoes specifically.’ ‘But why?’ ‘Go take a linguistics course if you’re curious, Ed. I just use the words, I don’t study their origins.’) After that, she’d assigned him the job of pointing out plot holes. (Winry had told him that it was the perfect job: he gets to point out other people’s mistakes in a nitpicky and annoying way. He’d told her to shut it.)) 

He’s not the one who gets up to get the phone (mostly because he’s knee deep in trying to figure out the plot twist before he can get there), so it’s Al who gets up, since Granny, Teacher, Sig, and his dad have all already gone to bed. 

Ed snaps to attention at Al’s polite ‘I’m going to kill you’ cough. (Ed’s heard it one too many times to not have a conditioned response, especially since it usually ends with someone— sometimes him— in deeply aggravating amounts of pain.) 

“Ah,” he hears Al say, “I’ll get him.” 

Al doesn’t so much get him as make an annoyed face at him from the doorway. “It’s your problem.” 

“You mean my boyfriend?” 

Al sniffs. “It’s the same thing, so far as I’m concerned.” 

Ed snorts, getting up. “I’m pretty sure that you’ve said the same about me.” 

“Well,” Al says philosophically, taking up his spot in the armchair by the fireplace again, “I wasn’t wrong.” 

Ed doesn’t bother pressing the issue, partially because Roy is waiting, but mostly because he doesn’t have a single leg to stand on. 

“Yo,” Ed answers, “I’m gonna hang up and call you back in, like, thirty seconds, ‘kay?” He doesn’t wait for the okay before he hangs up. 

“Okay,” he says forty-five seconds later. He’s standing in his dad’s office with the door locked, which is about as close to private as it’s going to get when he’s in a house full of the nosiest people he knows. “Now I can talk.” 

“What was that about?” Roy says with his usual distinctly amused air, but there’s something a little off. 

“You know how Hughes regularly tries to get you to tell him what we talk about?” 

“Yes?” 

“The people in my house don’t need to bother to ask, because they’ve already found it out.” 

Roy snorts. “Comforting.” 

“Yeah, well,” Ed says, “you’re the one who has to worry about his line being tapped, so I think I’ve got the moral high ground.” 

“Probably,” Roy answers after a brief pause. 

Ed blinks. “I’ll bite, what’s wrong?” 

He can hear a shift on the other end of the line that means that Roy has pulled the phone towards him so he can sit at the kitchen table. 

“Why do you think something is wrong?” Roy asks. 

“Because you just answered my question with a question,” Ed says. 

Roy sighs. “Right.” 

Ed frowns. “So? Spill it.” 

Roy sighs again. “You’re... aware that my career isn’t strictly military.” 

“Uh-huh,” Ed replies, not sure of where this is going, “you’re a politician. It’s kind of hard to forget.” 

Roy lets out a weak laugh. “Right, well, sometimes I live up to the job description.” 

Ed shifts, slipping from his perch on the desk into the armchair. “What is it?” As he flips through the mental list of ‘things that politicians do that are bad, subsection: ones Roy might do, he is not... encouraged. It could be something of dubious morality but ultimately a matter of a judgement call— something like trading increased discretionary funds for support for his new budget— or it could be something like ‘I started having an affair in addition to the love affair with a much younger man I have going on right now.’ (Not that Ed actually suspects Roy of that, given that Roy spends a good deal of time with sex workers but never seems to actually have sex with them, which is a pretty decent indication of the way he works— but being told by your boyfriend that he did something bad and then listening as he refuses to elaborate is not exactly fucking affirming.) 

“The pictures of us,” Roy says, “I set them up. The columns were intentional.” 

“Oh.” The rush of relief that floods Ed’s body is incredible. On the grand scale of fuck-ups that barely rates. 

“And you have every right to be mad,” Roy continues, “but—” 

“I’m not mad,” Ed interjects automatically. “Well, okay,” he corrects, thinking out loud, “I’m a little pissed, because it’s kind of fucking insulting that you didn’t just ask me if it was okay in the first place, and went behind my back to do it just because you were scared of the consequences, but I’m not about to start yelling at you.” He huffs. “Don’t get me wrong, it was a dick move, and if you do it again the chances of me dumping you for it jump way up, but it’s not that big a deal. No harm, no foul. The worst that happened was everyone I know got a kick out of reading them and my teacher beat me up, which was going to happen anyways because Al wouldn’t have kept his mouth shut.” 

“Oh.” Roy sounds so relieved it’s sad. 

“Are we good?” Ed asks. 

“Yes,” Roy says with a sigh. “So long as you’re alright with it.” 

“Right.” Ed huffs. “Just give me a damn heads up next time. I get that you’re not going to include me in all your scheming, and I’m perfectly fucking alright with that, but I’d like a chance to say no if you’re going to use me for something.” 

“Oh.” Roy sounds deeply touched and... surprised? That’s a new look on him. Roy doesn’t really do surprised. “You’re alright with that, then? Being involved in my— what was it?— scheming?” 

Ed snorts. “I just said I was. Some of us say what we mean, ya know.” 

“Right,” Roy says, “Sorry. That wasn’t meant as a comment on your commitment, I was just confirming.” 

“Do you want it in writing too?” Ed asks, rolling his eyes. 

Roy gives an amused huff. “Sure, let me call my lawyer. I’m sure she has something like that already written up.” 

“I really, really, hope you’re kidding.” 

“Mostly,” Roy concludes, “but I could probably find something.” 

“Isn’t it terrible tactics to offer ammunition to the person who might sue you?” 

“Well, yes,” Roy says. “Call it an overture of trust.” 

“Huh,” Ed says, “either you’re way worse at this than you’ve been pretending—” 

Roy snorts. 

“—or you’re totally whipped.” 

“Conjecture,” Roy says in a totally fake voice that sounds noble enough to imply that he should be completely above suspicion, which, since it’s Roy, means that he’s basically admitting that Ed is right. 

“You’re real fucking weird, you know that?” There’s not any bite behind the words, though. 

“Pot, meet kettle.” 

Ed snorts. “Great, you’re—” 

There’s a knock at the door, and Ed groans. 

“What?” He says loudly. 

The door swings open to reveal his mother. 

“How long have you been listening?” Ed says with the sort of resigned sigh that only happens when your mom decided that the second you turned eighteen, you were fair game for snooping. 

“Just a few seconds,” she says. 

Great, that means she’s been there the whole time. 

“Put me on,” she orders, and Ed hands the phone over to her obediently. 

“Hello,” she says in her sweetest, gentlest, most ice-cold do-not-fuck-with-me tone. “You’re Roy, I take it? I’m sorry I haven’t had the pleasure of speaking to you before. I was thinking of coming up to Central with Ed after the holidays are over. I’d like to meet you.” 

Not a single one of those sentences was a question— she fully expects for Roy, an incredibly powerful, battle-hardened general, to obey her. And he will. Fuck, his mom is terrifying. Ed is pretty sure she could order a lion to declaw itself and it would obey. 

“Hmm,” she answers after a brief pause, “I’ll have Ed pass on the details, then. I’m looking forward to it.” Ed almost snorts; she sounds like she’s looking forward to it in the way that a hawk looks forward to its next meal. 

She hands him back the phone. “Have fun, dear.” 

Ed takes the phone, holding it limply in his hand until the door swings shut behind her. 

“So,” he says after a moment, letting out a long breath. 

“So,” Roy agrees, sounding unsettled, which for him is tantamount to flat-out panic. “I suppose I’ll be seeing your mother soon.” 

“Yep,” Ed says, sighing. “I can’t fucking wait.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hughes: Yeah, Roy has a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms: alcohol, obsessing over every little mistake, moral philosophy... 
> 
> I'm still not happy with this, but I refuse to spend any more time on it.


End file.
